A Short Series of Shorts Starring Short and Company
by Cotton Candye
Summary: What do Holly and Artemis do between and within disasters? Delivered fat and fluffy. Chapter 5 up after so long, For those of you who bared the wait. I congratulate thee.
1. Complications

Chapter 1: Complications

**Disclaimer: All the words contained within are my own. All that the words are about, however, belong to one Eoin Colfer, without which Artemis Fowl and his dastardly plots couldn't exist. I claim no ownership.**

_A/N: Hello one and all, this is my first fic on this site, but I've been a reader for a while. I thought I'd write a few shorts to get comfortable to writing. They may or may not be connected. I haven't decided yet. I've edited all you're about to read by myself, and my English is quite passable, so there should be few mistakes. Do not hesitate to point them out if found though, nobody's perfect. If you see some odd spelling, (centre instead of center for example) I apologize, but I'm Canadian, and that is how we spell. Those won't be changed. Without further ado, chapter 1!_

_A/N P.S.: This short is set after Artemis regains his memories from what happened at the end of TLG. There may therefore be spoilers for that book. I honestly don't know. Read at your own discretion._

"And you'll need camfoil, and a neutrino, and.."

Holly Short, a captain in LEPRecon, an elite branch of the Lower Elements police, simply glared.

"Foaly, we're going on a picnic, a simple PICNIC, why are you giving me all this?"

The centaur in question didn't even have the grace to be sheepish. Holly's glaring intensified.

"Well, If I know you like I know I do, then this 'simple picnic' with Artemis is probably going to end with someone's life being dangerously threatened by a threat we've stopped at least once already. I'd rather you be prepared."

"I'm sure nothing's going to happen!"

"You never know, Holly, there could be complications..."

Sighing, the elf accepted every bit of equipment heaped on her. She knew Foaly was right. Nothing was ever simple for her, nor Artemis Fowl, the mud man she was to have a picnic with. The duo had faced more in the past 8 (well, 5 for them, thanks to the events of Hybras) years than many fairies would faced in an entire lifetime; That entire lifetime being 1500 years. It had all been one grand adventure. Sometimes she just wanted to give it all up, then her thrill-junkie side promptly pointed out all she'd miss, and the thought returned to the very back of her mind again, where it belonged.

She was trying to focus on receiving equipment and having this tiring discussion with herself at the same time, so she almost missed her communicator. Almost, that is, because the only person who would call her right now also popped up on the ops centre screens at the same time. All of them.

"Holly, Foaly, hello. I know you are wondering why I would call you right now, but there has been a complication."

"D'arvit." Both fairies muttered simultaneously. Foaly, though, shot Holly a wink right after. A potential major problem did nothing to dampen his gloating over a correct prediction. Even if he had been hacked.

"Ireland is currently dealing with some... minor precipitation. We either have to reschedule, or have an indoor picnic. I will allow you to decide."

"I see no problem with having it outside. Surely the great Artemis Fowl can't be foiled by slightly fowl weather?"

Holly wasn't worried about 'minor precipitation'. They could always bring an umbrella or something. She really didn't think a bit of rain could halt an entire picnic. This was going to be their first real interaction since Artemis had successfully cloned himself. Gaia would have to do better than slight drizzle. Nothing short of a lightning storm would stop the proceedings.

Mind you, that's exactly what was going on above ground.

"Perhaps I should rephrase myself, my saying that was a complete, utter..."

A crack of thunder made itself known through the speakers, while the according flash lit up Artemis' room.

"attempt at reassurance. So, Holly, indoor picnic, or wait?" Artemis may have been the one with rain smashing against his window, but his demeanor remained unruffled.

"I... I... how warm is it?" Holly all but squeaked the last part out.

"10 degrees Celsius, or 50 degrees Fahrenheit." Artemis seemed slightly amused at his friend. He'd started the chat completely stoic, but now allowed a slight vampire smirk to grace his face. "Also, if you'd prefer, frozen degrees Elf." A tad bit more than slightly smirking as he ended.

Her face blanching at the first reading, Holly did the only thing natural to her. She forged on.

"You know exactly what I'm going to pick! You had better have something to warm me up when I get there you silly mud man!" On that note, she stalked out of the ops centre, barely remembering to scoop up her wings.

Foaly had stared at Holly as she stomped out. He really should have been used to this by now. She was the most impulsive fairy he knew. He was about to turn back to any number of screens to ask how Artemis had hacked him when he was greeted by static, the boy genius no doubt having terminated the connection to do as Holly commanded him.

"Ah, young love. I remember when Caballine and I were like this..." He mused to no one in particular.

Except it wasn't to no one, because Holly had marched back into the room. The elf was small, but when she set her mind to it, a troll would be proud of her racket. And blissful ignorance. As well as her anger-limited vocabulary.

"Foaly. Visa. Now."

"I uh... sort of forgot to ask your commander. You'll have to request it from him yourself."

Foaly was slightly expecting Holly to break something, the way she looked. Instead she spun on her heels in an about turn and clomped back out, muttering, "complications, complications," under her breath.

Of course, as if the surface visit wasn't wayward enough already, it took a while for Holly to get clearance.

"What do you mean you're going up? It's a thunderstorm up there! E1's closed!"

"With all due respect, sir, I. Don't. Care."

"You're jeopardizing yourself here, Captain, and I'm not about to help you commit a grave act of stupid!"

Of course one of Holly's best friends, Commander Trouble Kelp, would be blocking her. Like she didn't have enough complications already. This bickering wasn't going well. She might actually lose the argument, and with it, her visit to the Fowl Manor. Not acceptable. But, she knew exactly how to win.

"HEY LOOK, LILI FROND'S NAKED!"

"What!? Where?"

By the time the Commander realized he'd been duped. He was looking at an approved visa reciept on his data tablet. There was nothing left for him to say.

"D'arvit." Except that, of course.

A half hour later, Holly was flying above the Irish countryside, tasting the clean air, feeling the air gliding over her suit. Freezing from the air on her suit...

"Foaly! Make a winter version of the suit for Frond's sake! How many times do I need to become a elfin popsicle before you do something about it?"

She might've had her radio channel open, but she knew there wasn't going to be a response. Foaly was probably too busy laughing at her shivering and worrying about her vitals at the same time to come up with a witty retort.

Artemis was waiting in his room. He'd calculated everything from the moment Holly had bolted from the ops centre. He'd even factored in the visa. Holly would be arriving in a minute. Plenty of time to spare, he thought.

He casually went to his window and opened it. Rather, he tried to open it. Artemis was gifted intellectually. He was a genius after all. What he wasn't gifted at was physical exertion, as his stuck window seemed to be telling him. Seeing this reminder of his puny strength did nothing to help his emotional state.

"You dare block me? YOU DARE MOCK ME?"

His being a genius meant that he arrived at his next thought quite quickly after overcoming the shock, though.

"D'arvit, I really hope Holly knows to slow down before getting to the window. This minor complication could really become something else otherwise."

Of course, that's exactly what happened. The complication becoming more, that is.

It took only a few minutes for Holly to become conscious, thankfully.

"Arty, I... think my helmet is broken."

"I'm not surprised. Getting pelted by supersonic raindrops and then a transonic pane of glass? It's a wonder you still have even a trace of magic in you. Or life, for that matter."

"It's truly wonderful to feel your sympathy."

"It's wonderful to give it, Holly."

The two were currently in Artemis' study, because his bedroom was trashed. Artemis himself had quickly deduced that no, Holly was altogether not rational enough to slow down to check for an open window when there was a thunderstorm outside, and ducked for cover under his bed. Crude, but lifesaving. Especially lifesaving when the sonic boom blew the broken window shards into the room like shards from a translucent grenade. Along with the grenade flew in one reckless fairy.

Artemis had quickly grabbed Holly and run into the next room over. Poor Butler was called to fend off the torrential downpour in his charge's bedroom while Artemis supervised Holly's healing. Fend off, because such a flood could not be contained, that was certain.

Holly was currently wrapped in a veritable cocoon of blankets, and sipping hot chocolate. Her suit, helmet, and equipment were strewn in various states of disrepair beside her. She couldn't bother herself to care. Near death experiences do that to a fairy.

"So... Still up for an indoor picnic, Arty?"

"There really is nothing else to do, for now. Let yourself rest a while. I'll get the picnic blanket and the... food..."

"That sounded a lot more like a sputtering stove than a human speaking with conviction."

"We... uh..." Artemis trailed off.

Holly barely managed to stifle her gasp. Something must really be wrong for Artemis Fowl II, communication extrodinaire, to stutter, use a verbal placeholder, and trail off in the same sentence.

"Some... complications arose... We may or may not have forgotten to prepare the food..."

Holly managed one incredulous look to ascertain that Artemis wasn't pulling a prank on her before letting herself, and her mouth inhibitor go.

Needless to say, a sailor would be shocked at some of the words that came out of her mouth that night. Artemis wasn't.

"Complications, complications..." he muttered under his breath. It had been a night full of them.


	2. Hong Kong Akimbo

Chapter 2: Hong Kong Akimbo

**Disclaimer: I am not Irish, have a funky first name that's pronounced Owen, nor do I believe in fairies. That last part may not be true. What is true though, is that I do not own Artemis Fowl.**

_A/N: Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to either chapter 2 or 3 of this fic. At the time of writing this A/N, I'm halfway through the original chapter 2, but might finish this first. They won't conflict chronologically anyways. That chapter is set at the very end of ASSoSSSaC's (I pronounce it as Ass-so-sac, in case you're wondering) timeline. This isn't. Also, I've figured I'll upload one chapter a week unless I get atleast 5 reviews that week, in which case I'll write an extra. With that out of the way, the main event!_

_A/N edit: ASSoSSSaC stands for the title of this series. It's an acronym._

* * *

Artemis Fowl was an intelligent human being. It's usually said he was the smartest in Europe, trumping everyone else in the standardized IQ tests. All his intellect didn't mean he was above mind-numbing entertainment though, especially when his favourite elf practically begged him. So here he was. The genius, the man, the myth, the legend, reduced to watching Holly and Juliet play **Black Ops** singleplayer. He could think of nothing else but _ughhh!_ such failure to communicate was a veritable rarity, but there was nothing else to think_._ The inaccuracies, t_he horror!_

Of course, He was the only one not completely enjoying this game. Butler had gone off to buy groceries, leaving his charge to Juliet and Holly only. Sandwiched between a hyperactive wrestler and a reckless cop, he found that his misery was his alone. At the moment, at any rate. He was formulating a plot to turn the hyperactive women off the game without turning them on him. No matter though, he'd find a way. Misery does love company, after all.

A few seconds in deep thought later, he had a spark.

"That's completely unrealistic."

Holly looked to her side for a brief second, then turned back to the game, as she was currently controlling. Juliet definitely used more time to try to unnerve Artemis. She looked at him and glared. Regular people shoot daggers with their glares; Butlers shoot swords. This was much more intimidating than any regular person would've been able to handle. Artemis was Artemis, however, and simply smirked at her until she dropped her gaze back to the screen, only to see a military quote pop up.

"My turn!" Juliet practically sang. She _loved_ Call of Duty, especially all the shooting the enemy.

As Holly completed the controller transfer, she let her eyes lock with Artemis'

"What, exactly, was unrealistic, mud boy?"

"Everything in the game really. Not losing ammunition on a reload with a partially spent magazine for one. Healing a bullet wound in two seconds of heavy breathing is obviously impossible. For that matter, taking hundreds of bullets a mission would kill anybody, but our protaganist not only survives, he's completely dapper at the start of the next mission. You know, though, the worst offender of the rules of physics and biology? How the character is able to aim, control the recoil of, and reload two weapons at the same time. He does not even rest them on his shoulders, he takes the load on his elbows. This game is a steaming pile of trash."

Holly was doing her best imitation of a fish out of water, her jaw flapping open and closed. She settled for the next best thing to a witty retort; a demonstration, albeit slightly delayed.

"I'll show you a steaming pile of trash! And you know why it'll be steaming? It'll have twinned neutrino blasts right through the centre, from weapons held Akimbo. You just watch!"

Holly had fallen for his ruse, harder then he'd expected, even. She was out of the room in a flash. He started a mental stopwatch and dug in to enjoy the show. First, of course, he turned off the infernal game console.

"Juliet, make me a sandwich."

A short while later, Foaly was startled as a head of spiky red hair burst through the ops centre door.

"How did you even get in here? I locked the door!"

All it took was one look at Holly to rethink his assumption that she needed a key to enter his office. One does not simply force her to follow precedents, such as finding the ops centre sealed tighter than a spaceship hatch.

"I need a blaster."

"You have one already."

"And the sun is round. Of course I have one! I want two. No questions asked."

"You're ambidextrous?"

"Remember the last part of what I just said? Do you want to be my first training dummy?"

Holly seemed so eager to shoot Foaly that he promptly handed her a weapon. She could be very, _very_ scary when she was angry, no matter the cause of her anger.

He tossed her a small, black, but distinctly Neutrino sidearm.

"It's my newest pride and joy, The 3.5k. The stiff parts of the weapon have been remade as carbon fiber, so the shell, for example, is only a few mm thick. It also has a reshaped sprin-"

"For Frond's sake Foaly, I don't care. It shoots, it doesn't need ammo; That's all I need. Thank you and goodbye, there are stupid mud men in this world who need to be proven wrong."

"Shouldn't you try to see if you can actually shoot straight first, before you give our friend Artemis a chance to laugh in your face?"

Silence followed his questions as Holly mulled the thought over. Did she want Artemis, criminal genius mastermind, to laugh right in her face?

"If you need me, I'll be at the range."

"That's what I thought."

A few minutes later, at the shooting range, Holly was warming herself up. She took a few shots with her off hand, slowly decreasing the interval between each. She hit the centre of her target every time.

"I must have gotten some ambidexterity from the mud boy. I can shoot so _straight!_"

Exactly three hours after Holly had zipped from Fowl Manor, she was back. Artemis, true to form, had been waiting for her.

"Let's see your skills then, Miss Akimbo."

She responded by blasting his sideburns off. He responded to that with none of the usual Artemis Fowl grace. Instead he yelled a very unsavoury word and fell right on his rear end.

"Maybe you should take those skills to your enemies, instead of me."

In the face of two laser bolts, Artemis had lost all snark, and what he said resonated with Holly. If her shooting akimbo was enough to scare the great Artemis Fowl II, common fairy criminals stood no chance.

* * *

Epilogue: Holly Short mentally groaned. This was it, no more surface missions. No more tunnel missions. No field missions, period. Instead, she was confined to a desk job. The newly minted major's acorns on her uniform did nothing to assauge her frustration. It wasn't her fault she was the closest thing to the LEP's Rambo. All that meant was that she did her job exceedingly well.

Unfortunately, her job had been done too well. Instead of bolstering LEPRecon, she had rendered every other field officer in the division obselete. They had had to promote her to major just to avoid mass layoffs. She did feel a little bit of pride though. She was a badass.

In the centuries to come, whenever a fairy did something amazing, their manouvre would always be called an 'Akimbo Holly Short'.

_A/N P.S.: I forgot to mention, this short is set in a partial AU where sometime after TLC they have the little conversation at the beginning and Holly therefore becomes an uber badass, instead of being barely badass enough to beat Opal by the end of TLG. That also means this fic's shorts don't all happen in the same chronology._

_review counter: III/V_


	3. Holly's Situation

Chapter 3: Holly's situation

**Disclaimer: The characters and settings portrayed in this fic are property of Eoin Colfer. That's pronounced Owen, in case you were wondering. I always thought it was pronounced like Ian, but I digress.**

_A/N: Hey guys, sorry this is a day or two late, but I managed to get my thumb caught in a fence I was jumping over on Friday(#freerun2014), and the pain stopped me from writing. Saturday, I had a whole day volunteering commitment(#carnival), so I couldn't write this then either. If this comes out on Sunday, that means my woes ended. If this comes out on Monday(which it did,) I probably had more problems on Sunday which I haven't bothered to include(#GGbaylife). Sincerely sorry for my tardiness. At any rate, this chapter has arrived! I'm sure my __**one **__follower is going to be so happy! :D _

_A/N P.S.: This short is based off the interview from the Artemis Fowl Files with Holly. In it, she stated her most embarrassing moment was being bit by a swear toad on her behind. This is my interpretation(read: headcanon) of how the event went down and how Artemis would find out about it._

* * *

Artemis was looking at Holly in a funny way.

There wasn't anything wrong, inherently, with his gaze, but they hadn't become the best of friends without noticing the minor nervous tics the other would exhibit. She'd even had this little thought with herself, and Artemis had still yet to move, yet more reason to think the mud man had something on his mind. There was no sense rushing him though; when he needed to deliberate, he did so, often with complete disregard for the time it took.

"Holly? Remember when we were caught in the time stream?" Seeming to have finished his deliberation or musing or whatever Artemis Fowl II does, he broke the silence.

"Which one, Arty?" Holly was slightly confused. They had gone on more than one time travelling adventure, after all.

"I should be more clear, I mean the Hybras stream. The one where we switched eyes, if you remember." Really, he shouldn't have taken this long to ask, but had been a slight bit embarrassed for Holly. He could no longer contain his curiosity, however.

"Of course I remember, how could I not? You don't think I look in the mirror every morning?" Holly still had no idea what he was trying to get at. All in time though. Judging by the way Artemis had brought this up suddenly, it must've been a memory she'd never told him. Even one she didn't want him knowing. Now how many of her memories fit that bill?

"You see, in that place, I saw some of your memories, as you did mine. There is, however, one in particular that I've been meaning to ask you about." All of a sudden, Holly had a sinking suspicion she knew what he was talking about. She only hoped it wasn't that. Please, Frond. Anything but that.

"Spit it out, mud man!" For all his verbal eloquence, Artemis had an annoying habit of beating around the bush. Usually Holly didn't mind overmuch, except when he was about to make a startling revelation or reveal a master plan. This was probably going to be a grade A example of the former. Her thoughts weren't assauged when she noticed how very still he was, another of his tics, albeit one rarely exhibited. If it was this bad, Holly knew what it was about.

"Alright! In that time stream, I found your memory of an interview in which you stated your most, shall we say inconvenient, moment." This was it, no hiding, no hoping, no 'say it ain't so'. He'd come right out and said it, and Holly knew she'd have to reveal.

Now, at this revelation, humans would go pale, or flush. However, fairies have a different response to emotional stimuli. In low level cases, they'd flush like a human. In feelings of high emotion though, they would lose control of their magic and vibrate in a manner akin to shielding. This also explained the lack of advertisements for vibrating self-stimulation aides compared to the volume of such for human websites.

Artemis was about to note this down in his mind when he thought of what he'd just observed. He took one look at his _female fairy _best friend (or her heat shimmer) and promptly filed that thought someone in the depths of hell. That was no way to think of her. Back to the task at hand. _FOCUS._

"Would you mind unshielding? I know you can top up later, but I'd really appreciate if you didn't run out of magic and collapse in the Manor. Too many red flags, I'm sure you understand, captain." He was trying to get her(and himself)back in control. He'd adopted a soothing tone and used it to full effect.

It seemed to do the trick as Holly became visible once again, although she still had a bit of a flush. She knew she'd have to come clean right this instant. Would Artemis look at her without laughing ever again though? There was nothing for it if that happened. Here went nothing.

* * *

"It was a short while after you'd captured and subsequently set me free. I had been assigned back to LEPTraffic, but Root assured me the post was temporary." She had adopted a gaze at the Fowl coat of arms. 'Aurum est Potestas', it read. She glanced at Artemis once to check if he was listening; this would be the last time. She had no intention of looking at the mud man until she was done the entire thing. What she saw was a soft gaze, willing her to continue. His look contained no hostility. How much he had changed. She returned her eyes to the shield all the same.

"Anyways, we were pursuing a rogue troll through a series of tunnels. Our squad had split up to cover more area. I managed to stumble onto the troll with my trademark rotten luck. It had apparently been sheltered near a cluster of cooled lava rocks, so our scopes didn't detect it.

I radio'd the troops and told them to help me with the big guy. Of course, as my luck would have it, they were all at least 5 minutes out, in which time I would've either been pulverized or captured a troll singlehandedly. The troll got up a mite close, so I blasted it with my Neutrino on high. Unfortunately, though the troll was thrown backwards, I was as well. Usually, this wouldn't be so bad, especially as the troll had been knocked out and I hadn't, but I managed to land in a cluster of swear toads. I hadn't even noticed the buggers when I'd entered the tunnel.

I got up quickly, but no quickly enough. One toad managed to latch on to my, er, derriere causing me to parrot its sailor mouth. By the time the squad had come. The 'contact area' had swelled. When I noticed, I immediately got myself whisked off to the medics. In that few minutes though, I had a bigger rear end than a dwarf. That's the story."

* * *

The two of them sat in a pregnant silence for a second until Artemis decided to break it. Probably his cheekbones would break as well, but the opportunity to wisecrack was simply too good to pass up.

"That can't be so bad. Many males envision the ultimate rear end on a female as being a bubble butt. You should be so proud you had that..."

Mind you, he didn't trail off, That's not why he didn't finish his sentence. He'd simply been punched unconscious by a fuming LEPRecon captain. She was slightly glad he took this opportunity to joke. If he'd made an advance or something, Frond help him, he'd probably be dead or in a coma.

The supposedly insensate Artemis couldn't resist the second one liner in as many sentences. He didn't want to get actually hurt, but he was on a roll.

"It seems the butt-venom has slowly spread to your fist, captain. It felt like being hit by a balloon!"

He wasn't faking the next time around.

* * *

_A/N 2: Should I bump the rating up to T? Kids won't get the one reference to 'self-stimulation', but should I raise the rating just to be safe?_

_A/N2 P.S.: If anybody wants, I can write my headcanon of the swear toad incident in a legitimate, full story form for ASSoASSaAaP. Just review or pm me._

_A/N2 P.S.2: The original chapter 2 may never get done. I have no idea now where the heck I was going to go with it._

_Wow, were there a bunch of errors in the first post. I don't know what happened. All I can say is that they've been fixed._


	4. Artemis' Situation

Chapter 4: Artemis' Situation

**Disclaimer: I don't own Artemis Fowl, if I did, the name on the front would be Eoin Colf****_re, _****because Canada does some weird stuff.**

_A/N: Here we are ladies and gentlemen! I am BACK! This last week was probably the period of time I had the most time, but my writing was completely blocked by not 1, but 2 whole computer total failures. Now, however, I've rolled out my previous laptop, coats of dust and all, and I'm mostly operational. The original chapter 2 is stuck on my __**#rekt **__laptop's hard drive, by the way. Oh well. I'd hit a roadblock on that anyways._

_A/N P.S.: I actually got this computer up and running Monday(yesterday), but I've gotten into Touhou, and well... Touhou: EoSD is really addicting. And hard. _

_**I CAN'T BEAT NORMAL WITHOUT CONTINUES **_Q_Q

* * *

Premise: For anyone not familiar to this story's premise, in the Artemis Fowl Files, Holly, Artemis, and Mulch told their most embarrassing moments. Holly's was last chapter. Artemis' was a 99% in a math test(this chapter). Mulch's will be next chapter.

Premise P.S.: So I just reread the interview bit after writing the first 10 sentences or so of the scenario. I could've sworn I'd read it as mathematics _test_ but the copy I read just now said _assignment_. In this, it's a test. How am I supposed to write an entire fic about one lousy assignment anyways?

* * *

Holly had been invited over to the manor again. Artemis had insisted this was for leisure. He'd also insisted there were no complications or anything of the sort. The skies were blue, the sun was shining, the temperature was just right.

So of course, they were spending the day inside.

"If these twin brothers of yours _don't _count as complications, what are they? I'd love to know what excuse you can come up with."

"There _were_ no complications, and now there are. I said there weren't, but as for the 'aren't', I haven't said it since they came back early from the dentist."

"Keep fooling yourself mud man. I can't believe my trip was ruined _again_."

"Hey, it could be worse. You could be getting bitten by a swear toad on the..." Holly had started to give him a death glare. After the episode where he'd made fun of her for recounting her most embarrassing moment, he'd made sure not to receive that stare.

"You know, Holly, I don't think you're too eager to be babysitting. Why don't you go up to my study? I'm sure you'll find something to do there before I can get them to nap."

"Great idea, Artemis, maybe I'll find a diary entry with _your_ most embarrassing moment in there_!_"

Artemis was about to turn back to the twins before he realized that he did, in fact, have his most embarrassing moment in there. By this time though, Holly was halfway to the stairs. He'd never catch her. Could be worse.

Holly decided to boot up his computer. There was no password, and why should there be? Only Artemis and Butler knew the password to the _door_. No lock is omnitool proof, however.

"Hmm, let's see... video diary. If he's had such a moment, he should've documented it. He thinks I won't find it if it's numbered?" With this, she pulled out her communicator and called Foaly.

"Hey, I'm a bit busy right now Holly. There's a new microtracker Artemis is testing and... you're in his study? How did you manage that?"

"Don't worry about that, old friend. What I need to know is, can you find his most embarrassing moment in amongst these entries?"

"No problem, I'll just download them and run a speech scan for the word... got it, entries 6 and 14. Both contain words with the root embarrass. Now, what's the password to his computer?"

"There is none. Maybe..."

They were cut off by Artemis suddenly walking in to the room.

"Holly, since you seem so persistent, I'll have you know you booted up the phantom drive, there's nothing you can find It's a jumble of buzzwords and keywords. All the files are locked by eternity code, as well. Drop the call with Foaly, and I'll give you the video."

She yielded the space in front of his computer. It was hard to hide her excitement. She terminated the call.

"You're vibrating." It was said in a matter of fact way, but he knew what it meant. He'd seen it once before.

"Anyways," he continued "I recorded it all on my video pen. See for yourself what happened. I can't bear to watch this again. I'm going back downstairs."

She turned her gaze to the screen to discover that he'd put the video up already. She didn't need to look for it. How considerate. Her mouse hovered over the play icon for a brief moment, then she clicked it.

* * *

Artemis Fowl was attending class. He was not learning, but he was attending nonetheless. Something about how generations of Fowls had done the same. He was no ordinary Fowl, but here he was, all the same. He'd decided to pass the time by recording all of this on his video pen. Maybe something interesting would happen to the teacher.

"Class! Sit straight and pay attention. You have a test. Today. Have fun."

Artemis sat with mild amusement while his so-called 'peers' promptly did exactly the opposite of what the instructions were and ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.

"I'll Sue you!" "Who's ever heard of a pop **test**?" "I want my mommy!" "I think I just farted..."

After he checked to make sure the last was uttered far away from him, he waited patiently for the test papers to come.

Once he got them, he whipped out his pen and got to work.

"Hm... basic algebra, fractions to decimal conversions, geometry, a hundred questions... how are we supposed to learn?" He was mumbling, so no one heard him, except Holly. All the same, they'd dare not do anything anyways. He could buy out the business of any one of their families.

It took a few minutes for him to finish. He looked up at the clock.

"I've been faster. Am I too distracted by this fairy business?" as his mind wandered, he put in the answer for the last question. A critical mistake. Holly could see that he'd not rounded to the three decimal places specified, but two. She snickered.

"Yes, mud boy, I do believe you have."

Artemis proceeded to wonder if should check his test once over. He finally decided he didn't need to. He was Artemis Fowl, for Frond's sake. He could write a better _textbook_ than this, just writing the answers was a piece of cake.

"I don't need to check. This was a piece of cake." As Holly watched, he handed it in. That was to be his final mistake, and the one that broke his test.

"Oh how wrong you were, mud boy."

Just as she finished watching, he walked back in.

"Happy?"

"Oh, I think I'm just about 99% satisfied to a third point."

And thus, he walked back out, fuming.

* * *

_A/N 2: This fic cause me the most trouble. 3X the time to write needed, for the shortest chapter yet._

_A/N 2.5: I was listening to a Touhou medley while writing this. It helped. Who knows how long it would've taken otherwise? The three songs I had on replay were Bad Apple (w/ vocals) Night of Nights, and the original U.N. Was her?_

_I might even write a Touhou fic soon._

_A/N 2.75: I was in the process of writing an Ace Combat fic, but it died with my hard drive as well as this series' lost chapter -_-. It seems all I'll have for now is AF._

_A/N 3: The review for extra chapter thing has been scrapped. No one gave a care T_T._

_A/N 3 P.S.: What is that, 3 emotes in one fic's A/Ns? Damn._


	5. Breaking Barriers

Chapter 5: Breaking Barriers

**Disclaimer: I own no part of the Artemis Fowl franchise except my own thoughts on it.**

**Disclaimer2: The fourth wall will be broken this short. If that's not your cup of tea, drink coffee.**

_A/N: Aloha! Boy has it been a long time! I'm not kidding when I say in the summary that I'm out of ideas you know. Fortunately, the review by 'cookies' has galvanized me into writing for this fandom again. I've mostly been Brohou'ing these past months, so forgive me if some characters are OOC or something. I'm completely working off old memories. More details on what I've been up to and the future of this fic after the story itself. This A/N's length is getting out of hand._

_A/N P.S: I stopped the trilogy. I got mindblocked on what to do with Mulch and AF as a whole._

* * *

The world was ending.

What happened, did you ask? Did Hong Kong Akimbo' Holly manage to corrupt all future timelines? Had Artemis accidentally set off a nuke in the backyard of the manor? No. The crew had discovered they were the subjects of a story. How, you ask? A copy of book one was sitting in Artemis' lap.

The truth is stranger than fiction, they say. Whoever they are, they're right.

"o you not understand what this means, Holly? We were the subjects of a story the whole time! Who could've been sadistic enough to put us through all that is unknown to me, but, just think! We could still be characters in a story!"

Artemis tended not to be overexcited, but this could be the discovery of a lifetime.

"This could be the discovery of a lifetime, Holly! The possibilities are nearly endless."

"If I _am_ to believe that, I'm going to need some proof, mud man. How do I know you're not pulling my leg? I don't suppose it's too hard for you to repackage one of your stories as a mean joke."

She was currently pacing back and forth. Maybe Artemis was excited, but all the elf could think was how much trouble the fairies were in if the series was widespread. What a catastrophe.

"Disbelieve me all you want, Holly, but empirical evidence is just short moments away."

"Tell me, then, what are you going to do for proof, just short moments away?"

"Simple. Author, if you're writing this, make something strange happen."

All of a sudden, the wall with the best view of the scene collapsed in on itself.

"_Well you really proved it now_! _You broke the fourth wall!"_

"My apologies, sir or madam author. I'll pretend like that didn't happen and I don't know of your existence now that I'm proven correct. Please kindly repair the fourth wall and we'll all pretend it was never broken, for the audience's sake."

The wall suddenly reassembled itself.

"At least that job is taken care of. Seriously, Arty, that could've been _bad!"_

"We can discuss that later, how about you calm yourself down first and take a chair?"

Holly calmed herself down and sat in a chair.

"You know, Holly, I've thought of something interesting."

"That's wonderful, Artemis. _Táimid i dtrioblóid mhór, Frond ár sábháil!"_

"Come now, Holly, it isn't anywhere near that bad. I thought you were calm."

"Calm as can be."

"Switching to another language to cuss doesn't mean you're calm, Holly, it just means the author wishes to keep this story K+ rated."

The wall collapsed once again.

"_You did it again!"_

"Don't grudge me my amusement, Holly, its fun to shatter that wall."

A few moments passed with the atmosphere inside the room extremely tense.

"I'm surprised it didn't rebuild nor collapse this time."

Holly redirected her glare away from the wall and onto Artemis at that.

"Could you stop _tempting fate? Something bad is bound to happen!"_

Something bad was not, in fact, bound to happen. The wall finally rebuilt itself, seeing as it hadn't been directly evoked for long enough.

"Forget the state of the wall for a moment, Holly,

The wall shook a bit, but stayed relatively solid.

Why do you think it's called a fourth wall?"

"What do you mean?"

Artemis got into his 'I'm superior to you in intellect so listen to what I have to say' posture.

"I'm superior to you in intellect so listen to what I have to say, Holly. Why is it called a fourth wall, when they could easily call it a 'Fantasy Heaven', or 'Makai's Gateway'? Perhaps an omniscient ceiling? Why not, even, the first wall? Why the fourth?"

"I have no idea, you're the smart one. And what the hell is Makai?"

"Exactly. Makai is similar to our hell."

"That's not what I... nevermind. So what do we do?"

Artemis got out of his I'm superior to you in intellect so listen to what I have to say position.

"I'm not so sure, honestly. We could be forced to go on another adventure soon. We could be the subjects of an author's ridiculous pairing urges, despite our obvious genetic incompatibility and size difference..."

"I don't like either."

"I didn't finish. We could do both of those. We could do one, but we could do neither. There is an alternate possibility."

Holly leaned forward in her chair. This had better be good.

"And what would this alternate possibility be?"

Artemis looked like he was preparing himself for something. He'd taken on a sombre expression and spread his arms apart, as if to commit some grand reveal.

"We could do... absolutely nothing."

Holly had leaned very far forward indeed. At this climax, she gave up and faceplanted onto the floor.

"Lead a girl on, why won't you. Here I was thinking something useful was going to come out of that mouth of yours."

"Oh? But so much has. Tell you what, we could read this book I have until something happens to us."

"Answer me this first. We're in a story, correct?"

This time, when the fourth wall tumbled down, neither party gave it any heed.

"Correct."

"Stories follow a linear path, correct?"

"Each timeline does, yes. At every moment a change can occur, though, the timeline splits off."

"What?"

"To simplify, yes, this story follows a linear path. Others containing us follow a diff..."

Holly had to interrupt before her brain burst.

"_I DON'T CARE! _So if this story follows a linear path, that book in your lap will eventually catch up to this time?"

"What are you getting at? Ah! I see. Yes, sometime inside the stories, there will be a paradox. We will read up to the part where we read about ourselves, and then those two will go back again. Think of a two mirrors reflecting off each other. The reflections never truly end, but they become insignificant."

"So we're on the other side of that wall right now?"

Artemis pondered this for a second.

"I suppose, we're in the fourth room, or stage, of the work, which is why it's referred to as the fourth wall. It all makes sense now! Instigation, Excognition, Observation, Participation! This is why it is referred to as the fourth wall!

"How can the walls enclosing us _ALL BE THE FOURTH WALL YOU NUMBSKULL?"_

"Fine, don't appreciate my genius. I'm sure the audience does."

"I'm done."

* * *

A/N2: Oh boy, snippy Artemis, can you prove him right? Anyways, this is the sort of chapter that's commonly described as filler. It serves a purpose though. This will be the final chapter until such time as I get ideas from you, the readers. If I don't get ideas in the next week, I'll rename this chapter to something like Breaking Barriers/GIVE ME IDEAS PLZ or something else as desperate.

P.S.: As you can see, I'm very much alive, I've just been mindblocked on this fandom so far. I have, however, nearly finished my first Touhou fanfic, so there's that to look forward to for those of you who're my fans. I'm on this site everyday, if you want to talk to me or ask me about anything or give me ideas (plz), feel free to pm me. I also have an Archive of our Own account as Dashy902 that I go on quite a bit, and a Tumblr as dashy902 as well that I don't go on quite so much.

Writing music of the day: Touhou piano medley consisting of the following Marasy8 arranges (look them up on Youtube if you want): Take to Flight, Lunatic Princess, Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke, and Native Faith.


End file.
